Crashed EgyptAir flight’s cockpit voice recorder recovered

Cairo, June 16 (IANS) The Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said on Thursday that the cockpit voice recorder of crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 has been recovered but found damaged.

“The device has been recovered in several stages as it was found damaged, but the vessel managed to salvage the part containing the memory unit, which is the most important in the voice recorder,” the investigation committee said in a statement, Xinhua news agency reported.

EgyptAir Flight MS804, an Airbus A320, went missing from radar screens on May 19 en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French nationals.

Later, the Egyptian military announced that some personal belongings of the victims and small pieces of the plane’s wreckage had been found in the Mediterranean, 290 km from Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria.

The cockpit voice recorder is to be handed to prosecution officials and investigators in Alexandria.

On Wednesday, the investigation committee said the search vessel located several spots of the wreckage of the doomed plane, noting it was provided by the first images of the wreckage from one of the spotted sites.

An investigation is still on into the tragic crash, with all theories, like a terrorist bombing and a severe technical failure, on the table yet without a strong clue.